Techland Explains Why it Isn’t Making a Dead Island Sequel, Hints at Tensions Between Itself and Deep Silver

September 13, 2014Written by Zarmena Khan

In an interview with Eurogamer, Techland game designer Maciej Binkowski hinted that the reason why the developer isn’t making Dead Island 2 is because it was, kind of, turned away by Deep Silver. Although Binkowski sounded very reserved while answering Eurogamer’s questions, if we read between the lines, it seems that tensions between the two played a part in Deep Silver’s decision to go with Yager Development instead.

Well, you know, we had our ups and downs. There’s always tension between the publisher and developer. For us it turned out well, because being forced to come up with a new IP… We can’t just make a Dead Island 2 and change the name; it’s got to be something fresh, it’s got to be something unique. It was a bit tough. I would love to make a direct sequel, but at some point a decision was made.

They had a lot of ideas about how they wanted to run the franchise. Even with Dead Island there were a lot of moments where we would disagree on the creative vision of the project, so this might have been one of the factors.

Apparently, Techland knew that Dead Island 2 was coming. Binkowski said that he’s still friends with some folks at Deep Silver, and it was through them that he knew about the sequel’s development years ago.

It’s not doom and gloom for Techland, though. The company is releasing Dying Light in January 2015, and from what we’ve seen so far, it looks good!